probes::passwordchecker(3)  SmokePing  probes::passwordchecker(3)



NAME
       probes::passwordchecker - A Base Class for implementing
       SmokePing Probes

OVERVIEW
       Like probes::basefork, but supports a probe-specific con-
       figuration file for storing passwords and a method for
       accessing them.

SYNOPSYS
       SmokePing main configuration file:

        *** Probes ***
        + MyPasswordChecker
        # location of the file containing usernames and passwords
        passwordfile = /usr/share/smokeping/etc/passwords

       The specified password file:

        # host:username:password
        host1:joe:hardlyasecret
         # comments and whitespace lines are allowed

        host2:sue:notasecreteither

DESCRIPTION
       In implementing authentication probes, it might not be
       desirable to store the necessary cleartext passwords in
       the SmokePing main configuration file, since the latter
       must be readable both by the SmokePing daemon performing
       the probes and the CGI that displays the results. If the
       passwords are stored in a different file, this file can be
       made readable by only the user the daemon runs as. This
       way we can be sure that nobody can trick the CGI into dis-
       playing the passwords on the Web.

       This module reads the passwords in at startup from the
       file specified in the probe-specific variable `password-
       file'. The passwords can later be accessed and modified by
       the password method, that needs the corresponding host and
       username as arguments.

PASSWORD FILE FORMAT
       The password file format is simply one line for each
       triplet of host, username and password, separated from
       each other by colons (:).

       Comment lines, starting with the `#' sign, are ignored, as
       well as empty lines.

AUTHOR
       Niko Tyni <ntyni@iki.fi>

BUGS
       The need for storing cleartext passwords can be considered
       a bug in itself.

SEE ALSO
       probes::basefork(3pm), probes::Radius(3pm),
       probes::LDAP(3pm)



1.30                        2004-01-26 probes::passwordchecker(3)
